


Misunderstandings

by daughterofawolf



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Crushes, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Lesbian Emily Prentiss, Love Confessions, Mild Angst, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining, Reader-Insert, Romance, bc who doesn't love a good misunderstandings that could easily be fixed via basic communication fic?, bisexual reader, obviously, penelope and derek are the best matchmakers even if they lack subtlety, spencer gets his feelings hurt, strap in losers it's time for mutual pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofawolf/pseuds/daughterofawolf
Summary: When Spencer Reid overhears a conversation between the reader and Penelope things become weird between the two of you. Can you and Spencer figure things out, or will words misunderstood spell the end of your friendship?
Relationships: Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia & Reader, Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Comments: 8
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter 1

“Ugh.” You threw yourself dramatically into the chair next to the desk, causing it to roll slightly.

“Uh oh, I know that look. What did Reid do now?” She may not have officially been a profiler, but your best friend Penelope was still pretty sharp at figuring out what was going on with you. Although, with the amount of times you’d been in her office (not to mention her living room, favorite bar and—on one strange occasion—a petting zoo) complaining about your hopeless crush on one Dr. Spencer Reid, it would have been pretty hard for her not to recognize the look of besotted anguish you got on your face every time you talked about him.

“Nothing. He didn’t do _anything._ It’s just—It was a case with kids, you know?” Reid was incredible with kids and he didn't even know it. It was painfully endearing and every time it happened it made your heart clench in unfortunate ways and fantasies come unbidden to your head. Last time it had taken 2 bottles of wine and an entire evening of bad TV with your female coworkers to calm you down. This time you didn’t have the luxury; you were needed back in the office on paperwork almost as soon as you touched down.

“God, you’re hopeless.” Penelope shook her head at you. “I just don’t understand why you don’t do something about this, you know? No offense, but it is literally driving you—and therefore me—crazy.”

“Not this again,” You rolled your eyes. You knew Penelope was in favor of you just telling Reid your feelings, consequences be damned. She frequently insinuated that Reid may even like you back, if you could just pluck up the courage to tell him, but for some reason you would rather face down a hundred armed psychopaths than tell your incredibly sweet coworker you were maybe a little bit in love with him. Ha, you should tell that to your bureau-appointed shrink, she would probably get a kick out psychoanalyzing it.

“You know I can’t do that,” you sighed. “We’re _coworkers_ if you haven’t noticed. It’s completely inappropriate, not to mention unprofessional to have feelings for a coworker and mentioning them would just make things awkward and you know that’s the last thing I want to do. And _don’t_ tell me it wouldn’t be awkward,” You held a finger out to stop the interjection you knew was coming. “It’s Reid. Awkward is one of his specialties.” Which was actually something you found endearing about him, but you found pretty much all of his qualities endearing and that was beside the point. “You know I care about Reid as a person and I care about our working relationship and while I’m pretty uncomfortable now, I can’t help thinking it would be a lot worse if we talked about it.”

You crossed your arms and sat back in your chair with a huff, tired out from your rant. “Besides, it’s not like anything could ever happen between us, you know? Can you imagine _me_ with Reid?” You were embarrassed to feel tears pricking in the corners of your eyes. You weren’t insecure as a rule; you knew you were smart, a talented agent, and undeniably hot, but for some reason this crush made you feel like you were a teenager again pining over someone unattainable. Reid was incredible; sweet, gorgeous, not to mention a LITERAL genius. Of course you felt like you weren’t good enough for him.

“Sweetheart,” Penelope’s eyes softened. “Come here. You’re wonderful and he knows it, even if he doesn’t feel the same—and I’m not saying that’s true because you’ll never know if you don’t talk to him—he loves you. You know we all do.”

Hugging your best friend did make you feel better, “I’m sorry for being stupid.”

“Hush, you’re not being stupid. You want to get tacos tonight?”

“You don’t have plans with Kevin?”

“Nah loverboy has Magic The Gathering tonight. I’m all yours, hot stuff.”

“Penelope, you are a gem, you know that?” For all her teasing, she really was a top notch best friend. Drinks would definitely be on you tonight for all you’d put her through recently with the Spencer stuff.

“That’s me: best friend extraordinaire, tech genius, sex goddess.” Penelope twirled a fluffy pen between her fingers.

“Not sure how much I need to know about that last one,” you teased, getting up from your chair and heading back for a long day of paperwork.

\----

Spencer Reid was not having a great day. The case had ended okay. They had been able to save the last kid, but learned the unsub had 2 more victims they hadn’t even known about and watching JJ notify the families had made his stomach turn. At least that monster was off the street, but now Reid had to do paperwork about him when he’d much rather go home, read a book and forget any of this had ever happened. 

He had come to check some data with Garcia from the last case, but when he heard voices inside he had stopped. He really shouldn’t be eavesdropping in the first place, normally that wasn’t like him, but you had sounded upset and then he heard his name and he had just frozen.

He _really_ wished he hadn’t overheard that. It was embarrassing enough to know you knew about his feelings for you. “Inappropriate and unprofessional,” you had called them, which he could understand but it still hurt to hear. But it was something else you had said that was still ringing in his ears: “can you imagine _me_ with Reid?” It wasn’t even the words that stung, he hadn’t really hoped you had feelings for him back, even if sometimes when you smiled it felt like maybe there was a chance. No it wasn’t the dashed hopes, it was the tone of your voice. You had said it like it was laughable, like the idea of you ever being with someone like him was so impossible it was almost insulting. And that was what had made him run away.

What was worse was that Y/N was incredible. She was kind, funny, smart: everything he could ever imagine in a partner. Of course he had fallen hard for her, but he thought he had kept it secret pretty well. Derek knew, but that was because he had bullied it out of him after a particularly difficult case. He had been surprisingly good about it. Spencer had been expecting a lot more teasing, but he guessed Derek didn’t tease about things that were actually important. 

Reid tried to rack his brain for things that might have tipped you off. Sure, he could be a little awkward around you and he had a tendency to blush, but he’d always been careful about physical touch or staring too long. Maybe he had been too careful, and that’s how you noticed, or maybe he was only deluding himself and it had been completely obvious to everyone how awestruck he was by you. You were a brilliant profiler so he supposed he should be less shocked that you’d realized his feelings for you, it was impressive he had kept it from the team this long with how bad the crush was.

And it was bad. He didn’t know if he’d ever felt this way about anyone before. You’d only joined the team 7 months ago and from the moment he met you he had been half head over heels. It wasn’t just that you were clever and good at the job, you were so genuine with everyone, from the families to your teammates. You were funny in a way that made every case with you easier and you knew when to be serious, when to talk and when to just listen. For all his so-called genius and profiling skills, Reid didn’t ever think he’d understand people’s emotions the way you did, let alone be as good at them as you are.

Reid ran his hands through his hair. Sure it hurt to hear you say those things but you’d also said that you cared about him and your relationship and if you had that in common this shouldn’t be too hard to move past. He would just have to act normal and hope that things would get less painful over time. How hard could it be to act normal?

\----

Spencer Reid was not acting normal. 

You’d noticed it the second you got into the office the next week. A weekend of time with your friends and cat, not to mention some romance novels, had left you feeling rejuvenated. You had resolved to move forward as if your crush on your coworker was a minor annoyance, as it usually was, rather than a looming disaster, but that resolution was already off to a rocky start. Said coworker would barely meet your eyes and said no to grabbing coffee from your usual place, even when you offered to bring him some back with lots of sugar. He’d remained absorbed in his paperwork all day and had been weirdly quiet when joined the team for lunch. You tried not to take it personally, just because Reid was being distant didn’t mean it was about you, but it still bothered you.

By Wednesday you were swept up in another case and too distracted to think about Reid’s new coldness as you desperately tried to track down an unsub who was abducting college students and forcing them to kill. By the time you were on the jet back, you were exhausted, both mentally and emotionally. 

You leaned against the glass of the window and thought about trying to sleep, but the still-too-fresh images of the victims’ bodies made you hesitant to close your eyes. Morgan and Prentiss were having a hushed conversation in a corner, Hotch was doing paperwork. Against your will, your eyes fell on Reid where he was sitting by himself, headphones in, staring at the window.

Before you had really thought about it, you were up and moving towards him.

“Hey.” You felt shy and hesitant around him in a way you hadn’t since you had just joined the team and found yourself immediately infatuated with the young doctor. It was stupid how one week of weirdness could throw you back to that. “Mind if I, uh, sit here?” You gestured haphazardly to the seat across from him and smiled softly when he nodded. 

“What are you listening to?” you offered when Reid made no move to speak.

“Um, Debussy. I find it...calming,” he replied, still not really meeting your eyes.

“You can’t sleep either, huh?” you teased gently. “This case was a rough one, but you were really amazing. Your map was so accurate, I don’t know why I’m still surprised at your ability to pinpoint the unsub’s comfort zone so perfectly, you do it every time. You helped us catch her a lot faster.”

“Uh, thanks,” Reid still wasn’t quite looking at you but he gave a half smile at the compliment “It’s really not that big a deal, it’s just basic geographic profiling.”

“Right. Well, still.” You leaned back against your chair. It seemed pretty clear that Reid wasn’t interested in having a conversation. You were probably an asshole for coming over here in the first place when he clearly wanted to be alone. You were usually better at reading people; this new Reid behavior was just throwing you off and you didn’t know what to do. It seemed like he was sad and the idea of him hurting and you not reaching out was driving you crazy, but asking him directly felt a little too close to the territory you were always so carefully dancing around with him. Coworkers, friends, maybe even close friends, but never too close. No, he had Derek and you had Penelope and you were sure he had friends outside of work. He didn’t need his enamored coworker asking him about his feelings all the time.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t save her,” Reid interrupted your thoughts. You snapped your head up to find him meeting your eyes for the first time in what felt like a week.

“What?”

“The unsub. I’m, uh, sorry about how it all went down.” 

You had been trying to talk the unsub down when the local SWAT team had gotten the shot and taken it. You’d been so close to getting her the help she needed, when instead you were sprayed with her blood.

“It’s okay. She murdered 4 people and traumatized all those kids. It’s not like she was a saint,” you responded

“I know, but still. I know you hate it when it ends that way.” 

Embarrassingly, you felt your eyes well up. It did upset you when unsubs got killed, even when you understood why law enforcement or the team made that call. Even when they were absolute monsters, you still hated it every time. And Reid noticed. He noticed and he checked on you every time. You hadn’t realized until now how much it had bothered you when he hadn’t today.

“Thanks, Reid. You’re...you’re a really good friend.” You leaned forward and put your hand on his leg.

“Yeah.” And he was looking away again, staring out the window. It was like a wall of glass had come down between you and you couldn’t read him anymore. 

After a moment he put his headphones in. You closed your eyes and tried your best to sleep. It may have been your imagination, but sometimes you felt like you could feel Reid’s eyes on you as the jet soared through the sky.

\----

The case had been tough, but spending time around Y/N had almost been harder. While he wasn’t sure what that said about his desensitization to the horrors of his job, he really didn’t like what it said about his ego. Was it so hard for him to be around a woman who rejected him? Someone whose presence he enjoyed, who was a good coworker and a considerate friend? Hell, she hadn’t even rejected him. He had overheard a private conversation that wasn’t meant for him and now he was holding it against her and he couldn’t make himself stop.

He noticed the way her smile fell when she looked at him and he didn’t smile back. The way her eyes flickered to him when she told a joke and everyone else laughed. He knew he was failing miserably at being normal and taking things maturely and she could tell, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop feeling hurt. Not when she was still around looking beautiful, and being brave and clever and calling him a “good friend.” He never wanted to be one of those guys who threw a fit when they were “friendzoned” and he wouldn’t be, he just needed a little time. Time that was difficult to get when they were still working on the same team, which is why having feelings for a coworker was ill-advised in the first place.

“Can you imagine _me_ with Reid?”

It still stung and he could feel it every time he looked at her. Even and especially when she was being brilliant and funny and sweet. But still, she hadn’t meant to hurt him and it wasn’t fair for him to be cold when she was clearly trying her best to be nice to him. So he would nurse his hurt feelings on his own and he would do better. He had to.

\----

Spencer Reid was still being weird. 

Hotch had given you all two days after the last case, so you were back at work on Tuesday and Spencer was there with coffee from your favorite place already at your desk. While last week he wouldn’t even make eye contact, now it seemed like he was going out of his way to be nice to you, which would be sweet if the hot and cold treatment didn’t make you so suspicious. 

You were in the lunchroom on Thursday (day three of “Spencer’s-being-too-nice-to-me,” not that you were counting. You obviously had more important things to worry about than whether your coworker was being weird around you, being a special agent at all and totally not hopelessly obsessed with him) and the team was teasing Morgan about his love life again.

“I mean it Morgan. You think you can get any girl you want when you bat your eyelashes and flex your muscles like that, but there is no way that playboy attitude always works. I bet if we put it to the test Spencer here could get way more phone numbers in a night by just being his endearingly sweet self.” Emily ruffled Reid’s hair and he blushed and ducked away.

“Oh really?” Morgan asked “What about you then? If my moves are so ineffective, you think you’re smoother than me?” he shot back.

“Oh baby boy I could dance circles around you when it comes to ladies.” Emily leaned back in her seat.

“Hey, we could always try it sometime. Next time we go to the bar we can set up a wager. I know who my money’s on.” You high-fived Emily under the table, purposefully avoiding Spencer’s eyes. Emily was a pretty impressive flirt, but secretly you agreed that Reid had more charm than anyone on the team when he thought to use it. 

“What about you Y/N?” Morgan teased “Are you in on this or would that give you an unfair advantage with twice the prospects to choose from?”

“You know that’s not how Bisexuality works, Derek. And besides I’m not really on the market right now.” You felt yourself flush slightly. Why had you said that?

“Oh really?” Derek said, smiling wider. “Is there something you want to tell us? Got a new lover?” he drew the word out and you felt your blush deepen as you watched Spencer go still in your peripheral vision.

“No, I, uh. I didn’t mean I’m not on the market—I’m single, I’m just not looking for anyone right now, you know? Lover-wise, that is.”

Your sentence was punctuated by the scraping of a chair as Spencer suddenly got up from the table.

“You good, man?” Derek raised his eyebrows at Reid’s sudden movement.

“Um, yeah, I, uh. I have to go” Spencer all but fled the room leaving three agents staring after him.

“Any idea what that was about?” Emily looked at you.

“Nope. Although you know how Spencer can be about teasing when it comes to sex and romance,” you responded and Emily nodded.

You looked over at Derek but he was still looking at the door, a frown on his face.

\----

“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and Y/N?” Derek looked sideways at Spencer in the passenger seat who grimaced. They were on a new case and it was the first time they’d been alone since the incident at lunch. Reid had tried to avoid the subject by rattling off potential profiles for the new unsub, but it was a long car ride and there was only so long he could escape the conversation.

“You, uh, noticed that, huh?” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He should have known Derek would ask him sooner or later. Sometimes it sucked when all your friends were experts on human behavior.

“Kid, you practically knocked the chair over to get out of there. I know how you feel about her, but that was weird, even for you. You’ve been a little weird for like two weeks now and I’ve let it slide hoping you’d get over it, but something is clearly going on so come on, spill.”

“Nothing is going on between me and Y/N,” Spencer said bitterly.

“And that’s the problem right?”

“No it’s—” he sighed again, he might as well tell someone about this since he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. “I may have accidentally overheard a conversation between her and Garcia a couple of weeks ago.”

“And?”

“They were talking about me. It sounded like Y/N knew I had feelings for her and didn’t want to talk to me about it because she was afraid that would make things awkward.”

“Ahh. So now you’re, what, embarrassed?”

“Kind of hurt actually,” Spencer admitted “I didn’t expect her to like me back, but she talked about it like it was such a burden.”

“Ouch.” Derek shook his head. “You know, that doesn’t really sound like her. You’re sure you understood what you were hearing correctly?”

“It seemed pretty clear to me.”

“Okay. Well if that’s why you’ve been weird the past weeks you have to talk to her, you know that right?”

“What? No way, Morgan! What if I make everything worse?”

“Kid you’ve been moping for two weeks, how are you going to make things worse?” Morgan’s eyes softened at Reid’s panicked expression. “Just talk to her, okay. You’ll feel better with things out in the open. I’m sure it will all work out.

\----

You had decided you were going to talk to Spencer. Not quite in the way Garcia wanted—you presently had no plans to confess your undying love to him and ask him to have your babies—but you felt like it was a pretty brave decision nonetheless. No matter how you felt about him, Spencer Reid was your coworker and your friend first, and whatever weirdness there had been between you needed to be fixed.

You planned to wait for him at his desk after you got back from the latest mission but found him waiting at yours instead.

“Hey,” he smiled softly at you. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah” You suddenly felt as if all the breath had left your body. “I was actually going to ask you the same thing.”

He nodded and you wordlessly grabbed your coat and followed him outside. It was snowing in Virginia, one of the first of the year but neither of you commented on the cold as you stepped into the night.

“So?” You looked at him.

“I wanted to say I was sorry if I’ve been acting weird around you lately. I know that was probably confusing for you and I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me, Spence, but you’re right, I was confused. You barely talked to me last week and then this week you were so nice again and I didn’t know if it was all in my head. Did I do something?” you looked up at him, voicing your worst fears.

“No, you didn’t. It’s, uh, something I did.” He looked down at the ground and stopped walking. “I overheard a private conversation you were having with Garcia two weeks ago.” He closed his eyes as if bracing for an impact.

“Oh. OH.” Your eyes went wide as you pieced together what conversation he could have possibly overheard. You felt your cheeks heat. “I’m so sorry, you weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Yeah, I gathered.” He still wasn’t meeting your eyes. Had learning about your feelings really been so upsetting for him that he hadn’t been able to look at you for a week?

“Look, Spencer. I really am sorry. I never wanted to make you uncomfortable, which is why I never brought it up in the first place. Our friendship is so important to me and I didn’t want to ruin it and I-” Embarrassingly, you felt like you might cry. It wasn’t just that Reid didn’t return your feelings—you were prepared for that, but the fact that you had made things weird between you hurt worse, it was all your fears realized.

“Hey,” Reid’s head had jerked up at the sound of the tears in your voice and he was now looking at you, properly this time. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry too, I should never have eavesdropped on your private conversation and I shouldn’t have held your feelings against you in the way I have these past weeks. You haven’t ruined anything; I just needed some time to adjust and I should have talked to you. This is my fault.” You shook your head “No, it is.”

Even when he was rejecting you (did this count as him rejecting you?) he was unbearably sweet. “Thanks, Reid.” You raised a gloved hand to your eyes grateful to find them only slightly wet. “I’m really sorry if I upset you, I probably should have been less of a coward and talked to you in the first place.”

“I’m sorry too.”

Despite his earnestness you felt a laugh bubble up in you “Okay. Then maybe we can both stop saying sorry and just be friends again?” You smiled at him.

“I would like that,” he said, returning the smile.

“Great. I’m going to go back inside because it is, in fact, freezing out here.” Spencer laughed slightly “Thank you, for talking to me. Have a great weekend Spence.” You hesitated before giving him a hug. You were surprised when he returned it, wrapping his arms around you like he’d missed you as much as you’d missed him these past weeks and you had to force yourself to let go and turn towards the building.

“You too, Y/N.”


	2. Chapter 2

You did not have a good weekend. 

Penelope had been invaluable, of course. She wasn’t kidding about “best friend extraordinaire.” She had been there with wine and movies and a shoulder to cry on and had even offered to dye your hair—her break up go-to—although you had insisted this was not a breakup, just you being an idiot.

For some reason, you hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. You thought you’d done so well at convincing yourself that a romance with Spencer Reid was not in the cards, but apparently some part of your brain had not quite gotten the message and that part was now wailing with anguish all the time and forcing you to picture Spencer’s sad face when he had apologized to you. God, you had cried in front of him. Cried because he didn’t return your stupid crush. You had made things truly and deeply weird and you weren't sure you could fix it, even if you had both agreed you were sorry for the strangeness and wanted to be friends.

And you did want to be friends with Spencer Reid. How could you not? But the idea of facing him on Monday morning and smiling at him like everything was alright and you hadn’t spent the weekend eating ice cream because he wasn’t in love with you made you want to crawl into bed and stay there. 

Your mind kept replaying the last 2 weeks in a loop; the conversation with Penelope, Spencer being cold and quiet (because he knew you had feelings for him and didn’t return them and was too uncomfortable to be around you), Spencer being overwhelmingly friendly (because he felt sorry for you and sorry for ignoring you the week before), Spencer out in the snow looking at you while you cried and apologizing over and over again. Fuck, you were a mess.

You needed more than a weekend to sort yourself out, but you didn’t have that luxury (unless you wanted to explain to Hotch why you were calling in sick and for some reason you doubted he’d be sympathetic to a “mild broken heart” as a reason to skip work at the FBI). You were pretty sure you looked awful on Monday. You’d slept through your alarm so your hair was in a messy ponytail and there were definite bags under your eyes. Penelope had taken one look at you and said “Oh, sweetheart” when you dropped by her office to say hi that morning. But you were determined not to let it interfere with your work, or with fixing your relationship with Spencer. So even though it hurt, you smiled at him when he came in, you asked him how his weekend was and you kept your head down and did your paperwork hoping desperately things would get better over time.

\----

Spencer felt like things were getting better. It was definitely getting easier to be around Y/N now that things were out in the open. Their interactions still felt tentative, like they were trying not to break each other or cross the careful lines of friendship they’d drawn. Hugs were kept short, one-on-one time minimal, but they were bantering almost the way they used to now.

She had looked so sad that first day after their conversation. Spencer had spent yet another weekend in a daze, trying and failing to read some Italian philosophy Rossi had lent him but it hadn’t been as bad as the weekends before. The conversation had been hard but it could have been worse. He hadn’t expected Y/N to cry, (God, he’d made her _cry_ he really didn’t deserve to be with her) but she had been so sweet and clearly embarrassed and he owed it to both of them to try his best, so he was, but then she came in on Monday looking like she may have spent the whole weekend crying and the urge to wrap her in his arms was so strong he’d had trouble focusing for the rest of the morning.

But, like he’d said, things had gotten better since then. He was going to stop moping and Y/N was going to stop looking at him like she was scared to get too close to him and everything would be alright. He knew it would.

\----

Penelope Garcia had a problem and for once she didn’t think wicked hacking skills would solve it. She fiddled with a fluffy pen, bouncing the bauble back and forth when she heard a knock on the door.

“The genius is IN, you may enter” she said without her usual enthusiasm.

‘Hey Baby Girl, I need you to look up...you alright?” Morgan trailed off as he noticed Garcia slumped back in her chair.

“I’m fine, kitten.” She turned to face the screen “What do you need?”

“Come on now, don’t lie to me, princess. Something’s eating you, was it the last case?”

Garcia grimaced, that one had seemed unnecessarily grizzly “No.” She deflated. “Honestly, it’s our friends. I’m worried about them.”

“Who?” Derek looked confused for a second. Garcia gave him a sardonic look, “Ahh, you mean Reid and Y/N. They’ll be fine. It takes a while to get over a broken heart but Reid told me he talked to her last week and I think things have gotten better since then, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“How can I not? It’s like watching sad puppies, plus I had to listen to Y/N cry all weekend which kind of made me want to punch our young genius in the face, which is new since I don’t usually want to punch puppies, or my coworkers, with the occasional exception of you.”

“Hey now. Also what did Reid do? I know he didn’t handle things great at first but it seems like he’s trying. It’s not every day you get rejected by the ‘woman of your dreams,” He rolled his eyes at the air quotes like he was repeating a phrase he’d heard too many times “Plus he’s only, what, 26? Cut the kid some slack.”

“Wait, what?” Penelope whirled to face Derek, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“The part about Y/N—at least I’m assuming you’re referring to Y/N—rejecting Reid. That’s not what happened,” Penelope insisted.

“Well yeah, sure that’s not _quite_ what happened, but it still kinda is. I don’t know exactly what he overheard in that conversation but it seems like whatever it was hurt him pretty bad, so I don’t blame him for freaking out a bit.”

“I thought he overheard the conversation I had with Y/N?”

“Yeah.” Now it was Derek’s turn to look confused.

“Tell me again exactly what he overheard in that conversation,” Garcia said slowly.

“Well, I don’t know. He didn’t give me specifics. He just told me that Y/N had figured out he had a crush on her and didn’t want to talk to him about it because she didn’t want to make things awkward.”

“THAT’S what he thought he heard??” Penelope looked completely shocked. 

“What am I missing here? It seems like you know something I don’t”

“Morgan, the conversation I had with Y/N was about how she’s hopelessly in love with Reid and refuses to tell him about her feelings.”

“Y/N is...in love with Reid?”

“Ridiculously, yes. Has been for months. Are you telling me he thought she was talking about _his_ feelings for her? As far as Y/N is concerned Reid doesn’t have any feelings for her, that’s why she’s been a mess all week.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Derek leaned back in his chair. “For some incredibly smart people our coworkers are surprisingly skilled at being idiots.”

“So Reid was upset because he thought Y/N was uncomfortable about his feelings?”

“Yeah, he’s crazy about her. He thought she could tell.”

“I mean, I always suspected it, but Y/N always shrugged me off.” Penelope shook her head. “I can’t believe this. I told her she should just tell him.”

“And I told Reid he should just talk to her about what he overheard. I guess that still didn’t clear things up.”

“But if what you’re saying is true, Derek this is amazing!”

“What?” 

“Are you kidding me? Our two friends who have been pining over each other for ages could actually be happy; this is literally the best possible news!”

“Yeah. Although them being all new couple-y might be even worse to be around than them moping,” Derek pointed out, but he was smiling. Penelope knew he wanted their friends to be happy just as much as she did.

“I’ll take that chance. Come on hot stuff, we have to tell them!” Penelope stood up from her much-loved desk chair.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow your roll, Baby Girl. We are not just going to bust in there and tell them each other’s secrets like that.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because it’s wrong. Plus, they wouldn’t even believe us.”

“Fine.” She sat back down. “What’s your plan then, Mr. Love Expert?”

“Simple. We just encourage them to talk to each other again. Straighten everything out, what could be easier?”

\----

“Uh Uh. No way. Not in a million years, Penelope, not even for you. I know you were right last time and I should have talked to Reid sooner but I am _not_ talking to him about this again, not when things are finally going okay between us.”

“But you never even actually told him about your feelings last time! You just apologized back and forth forever, that’s not a real conversation!”

Penelope had been attempting to get you to talk to Reid again for days, but you were standing your ground. It just didn’t make any sense to you. What did you stand to gain from laying your heart bare to Reid? He already knew how you felt and clearly it made him uncomfortable. Why put either of you through more of that? And why was Penelope pushing it so hard?

\----

“Come on Morgan, really?” Spencer raised his eyebrows at his friend.

“Yes really, I think you should do it.”

“I took your advice last time, I talked to her and it sucked, but it did make things better and now it’s time to let time do the rest. There’s nothing more we can say.”

“Sure you talked but did you really talk about it? About what you overheard? Did you even _tell_ her how you felt about her? From your own mouth? Don’t you think that would be helpful in uh, getting closure, or whatever?”

“Derek, I have no idea what kind of weird self-help kick you are on right now or why you are subjecting me to it, but I have absolutely no desire to put myself through the kind of torture that would be admitting my feelings to someone who both already knows and _clearly_ doesn’t feel the same way when things are already going better. Now are you going to drop it or do you want me to drive with Emily to the next crime scene?”

“Alright” Derek raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, “I’m just saying, pretty boy, you’re making a mistake.”

“You know, I really don’t think I am.”

\----

“Where are we going?” You were trailing behind Penelope who, for some reason, had insisted you follow her through the office.

“I told you, it’s a surprise. Now stop asking me!” 

You sighed. It didn’t really matter; you were happy to get away from the lunchroom anyway. Reid was wearing a sweater vest today and no matter how well your friendship was going that always seemed to make you uncomfortably aware of how attracted you were to your coworker. Penelope could take you to a janitor’s closet for all you care as long as it was far away from a certain adorable genius and his stupid sweater vest (who even wore argyle anymore?).

“Voila!” Penelope gestured grandly at a plain door.

“Penelope. This is a closet.”

“Of course it is darling, but it’s what’s inside the closet that counts. Come on, I’ll show you.” She gestured for you to go forward and you hesitantly stepped inside...only to hear the door shut and click behind you.

“Penelope, what the FUCK are you doing?” you hissed from inside what was ironically, definitely a janitor’s closet.

“It’s for your own good, kitten. You’ll thank me later!”

“Penelope!” but it was no good. You heard her footsteps retreating. You thought of texting one of your teammates to let you out and possibly to do a psych eval on Penelope who seemed to have completely lost it, but realized you had left your phone on your desk.

“Fuck,” you swore softly under your breath. She would have to let you out sooner or later, in fact you could almost hear footsteps approaching now, and voices.

“Derek, I seriously doubt I care about whatever it is you are trying to show me right now.” 

You tensed as you heard Spencer’s voice as your mind started to piece together what Garcia could have been planning. No, she wouldn’t, would she? She was an adult woman, an FBI agent, and a good friend who respected your choices. Surely she was above locking you in a closet with your coworker. Right?

Your worst fears were realized as you heard the sound of the door unlocking, quickly followed by Spencer Reid peering inside and then being quite firmly pushed, almost knocking you over.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” He quickly backed up against a shelf to give you space. “Derek, what the hell?” He turned to yell at the door.

“Sorry kid, it’s for your own good!” you heard Morgan yell from outside. Figures Penelope would get him as an accomplice.

“Um, Y/N, do you, uh, know why we’re in a closet?”

“I have some idea. Penelope tricked me in here, and it looks like Derek just got you, so I’m pretty sure they want us to talk,” you sighed.

“Oh, uh, right.” Spencer looked about as uncomfortable as you felt, but he didn’t ask what it was you were supposed to be talking about so you guessed he may have figured it out. He was a genius after all.

“We don’t have to, you know. Talk, that is.” You watched as Spencer nodded “I mean, they’ll have to let us out eventually. I’m pretty sure Hotch wouldn't take kindly to two of his agents missing work because two of his other agents locked them in a closet.” Spencer laughed slightly at that, which made you feel a little better. “Besides, they’ll have to come check on us at some point to see if it worked and then we can rush them. Garcia is pretty easy to take out in those 6-inch heels she wears and I’ve trained with Morgan enough to know how to take him down.” Spencer was actually smiling now which made you feel better.

“I’m sorry our friends are so ridiculous.”

“It’s okay. It’s not the worst thing in the world, being stuck in a closet with you.” You hadn’t really meant to say that and you felt your cheeks flush slightly as you looked away. “I mean, I know things have been weird recently, but you’re still one of my favorite people so...yeah.”

Spencer was looking at you in an almost pained manner “I know I said it before, but I really am sorry for how things have been the past couple of weeks. I should have handled things better.”

Something about the look on his face and the way that he fiddled with his hands, like he was ashamed, broke you. Fuck it, Garcia was right before and she was right now. You couldn’t keep dancing around each other. 

“No.” 

His hands stilled as he looked up at you. 

“This is my fault. I should have just told you that I liked you. I told Garcia I didn’t do it because it wouldn’t be ‘professional’ and that I was too afraid of ruining our friendship, but that’s not true. Well, that last part is true, but that isn’t all of it. I was scared of you rejecting me. I was scared that I couldn’t handle it and as long as I never told you I could just go on pretending that maybe you would like me back and that it wasn’t ridiculous for me to be in love with you, but that was cowardly. It’s like I said, you’re one of my favorite people in the world, Spence, whatever our relationship is, and I messed that up by not being honest with you and I’m sorry.” 

Your confession left you feeling breathless and raw but also lighter somehow. Why did Penelope always have to be right? Even when she locked you in a closet.

“You were in love with me?” Spencer was staring at you wide-eyed

“Um, yes,” you said, suddenly feeling awkward again. You steeled yourself “Am. I am in love with you. But I’m working on it, and I’ll get over it. I promise. I just need a little time,” you added in a rush. Fuck, this was hard.

“What if I don’t want you to get over it?”

“What?”

“What if I’m in love with you?”

“No. No, Spencer. Don’t do this. Whatever this is you’re doing, please don’t.” You backed away until you felt your back hit the door.

Spencer looked weirdly calm but his face was lit up by a half smile. “Y/N what were you talking about that day, with Garcia?”

“What? You know what we were talking about.”

“I thought I did. Now maybe I think I didn’t.”

“We were talking about my stupid crush on you. She was trying to get me to tell you how I felt.”

Now Spencer looked like he was laughing.

“What?”

“I just realized that I am a giant idiot and someone should probably take my genius badge away.” He sat down on one of the boxes in the corner, still laughing slightly.

“Spencer, will you please just tell me what’s going on?” Your brain felt like it was whirring trying to process what he was saying.

“This is my fault.” he reached out a finger to stop you. “No, it actually is. I overheard your conversation with Garcia and I knew it was about me but you didn’t actually say anything about what you felt. You just said that having a crush on a coworker was inappropriate and that you couldn’t imagine us together so I thought you knew about my feelings and didn’t want to confront me about it.”

You looked at him with your mouth open. He couldn’t actually be saying what you thought he was saying right now, because that would mean…

“What, uh, are your feelings?” You looked up at him “You said you had feelings for me that you thought I knew about, do you mean—”

“Y/N I have been in love with you since pretty much the day you joined this team.”

“What?” How many times had you said that this conversation?

“Well maybe not that day. But like 2 weeks after, on our first case you were talking to one of the families and you told this story about your sister and I just—”

You looked up at Spencer who was now smiling fondly. You remembered that day. You had gotten ice cream together after the case was over. You had suggested it and he had told you about a book he was reading and the history of publishing and gotten chocolate mint chip on his nose and you were pretty sure you had been in love with him since that moment.

“Spencer, I—” You looked at him, at a loss for words. “What do we even do now?” you laughed.

He was in love with you. Your coworker, your friend, the smartest, sweetest, man you knew, Spencer Reid, was in love with you. You felt like every love song you had ever heard suddenly made sense.

“Well, for starters, I would like to kiss you. If that’s alright.” He was looking at you so earnestly and you nodded gently as you watched a smile spread across his face.

And just when it seemed like nothing could be better than him smiling at you like that, Spencer Reid was kissing you, his hands moving to your waist and pulling you in as you ran your fingers through his hair. 

It could have been minutes or hours later when you heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind you.

“So did everything work out?” You squinted through the too-bright light shining from the doorway to see Penelope Garcia smiling broadly at you, Derek Morgan wearing a shit-eating grin next to her.

“Hi, Penelope. Bye, Penelope,” you said as you once again closed the door.

You turned back to see Spencer smiling at you softly “Where were we?”

You were at the beginning. The beginning of something wonderful.

(You were also in a janitor’s closet at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation making out with your coworker after someone locked you in there. A fact that Penelope would eagerly recount in her wedding speech. But that was a bit less romantic.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who commented on my last fic, you are 100% to blame for me deciding to write a second ever fan fiction.
> 
> With that in mind, if anyone wants to volunteer to beta future fics let me know, since it looks like I'm going to keep writing and advice is always welcome!


End file.
